The most ancient, soul capturing land of the Khoikhois.
Our journey began with a dusty handshake at the border, crossing from Northern Botswana with our Pajero and Explora caravan in tow, ready to see if Namibia lived up to the legends. It started in the wild theatre of Etosha, where the white salt crust of the pans meet the sky; the stark white walls of fort Namutoni and westwards to Okaukuejo that offered a front-row seat to the local wildlife drama every evening.
We stood on the edge of the northern pans and stared in awe and wonder at the ‘curvature of the planet’ in the silence of eternity and felt the presence of the Creator.
From there, we chased the wild western desert coast south, feeling the air turn salty and cool as we reached Cape Cross with its colony of Cape fur seals, and tried blocking our ears from the sheer noise and chaos and our noses from the overbearing smell of fresh walrus and seal which followed us inside the car for the next few miles.
who stepped ashore in 1486 was the first European to set foot on this part of the African coast, and following the tradition of the time, he erected a stone pillar topped with a cross, known as a padrão; to claim the land for King João II of Portugal.
Onwards to the misty charm of Swakopmund. We traded the slow crawl of the caravan for the adrenaline of quad bikes, carving lines into the massive white dunes. We dined out on Schnitzel and Bratwurst in the Bavarian Brauhaus before slowing down again in the aquatic paradise of Walvis Bay, swimming past pods of dolphin, porpoise, seals, and millions of seabirds flying overhead while jackals hunted for seal cubs on the beaches. The drive took us through the rugged heart of the Namib-Naukluft National Park toward the towering orange giants of Sussusvlei—a place so beautiful it feels like walking through a painting.
We camped in the Tsauchab riverbed alongside a very large Baobab in which a fully equipped modern shower room and ablution had been ingeniously arranged by the local farmer.
The landscape shifted again as we pushed toward Lüderitz and Aus, where the desert wind reminded us who was boss and we nearly froze half to death under the vast, starlit sky. We wandered the silent, sand-filled halls of the Kolmanskop ghost town, a haunting reminder of the diamond rush, before staring into the immense depths of the Fish River Canyon. Our loop back north through Keetmanshoop and Windhoek led us eventually to Gobabis, where we bid farewell to the land of the brave. Crossing back into Botswana, we finished the first of a few Namibian odysseys under the endless horizons of the Kalahari. It was a long road, a lot of sand, and a whole lot of soul; truly, God’s country, like no other on earth.
